NAME

shutdown − terminate all processing

SYNOPSIS

/etc/shutdown

DESCRIPTION

Shutdown is part of the UNIX System operation procedures.  Its primary function is to terminate all currently running processes in an orderly and cautious manner.  The procedure is designed to interact with the operator (i.e., the person who invoked shutdown). Shutdown may instruct the operator to perform some specific tasks, or to supply certain responses before execution can resume.  Shutdown goes through the following steps:

All users logged on the system are notified to log off the system by a broadcasted message. The operator may display his/her own message at this time. Otherwise, the standard file save message is displayed. 

If the operator wishes to run the file-save procedure, shutdown unmounts all file systems. 

All file systems’ super blocks are updated before the system is to be stopped (see sync(1)). This must be done before re-booting the system, to insure file system integrity. The most common error diagnostic that will occur is device busy. This diagnostic happens when a particular file system could not be unmounted.

SEE ALSO

mount(1M), sync(1). 

NOTE

shutdown requires that there be a user "adm". 

Version 2.4  —  May 08, 1986